Ali Belhadj

Ali Belhadj (1956-), also known as Ali Benhadj, was a cofounder of the Islamic Salvation Front Islamist party in Algeria in 1989. Belhadj opposed the moderate views of Abbassi Madani, advocating hardline Islamism.

Biography
Ali Belhadj was born in 1956 in Tunis, Tunisia to Mauritanian immigrant parents, and he became an Arabic teacher and an Islamist activist in Algeria during the 1970s. Having ties to the Armed Islamic Movement of Mustafa Bouyali, he was arrested in 1983, but in 1989 he cofounded the Islamic Salvation Front with Abbassi Madani when a multi-party system was implemented in Algeria. In 1991, he was arrested when the FIS took part in a general strike after the election results were voided by the military due to an impending FIS victory. In 2003, he was released under the condition that he would abstain from political activity, but in July 2005 he was arrested after praising Iraqi insurgents. On 25 July 2011, his son Abdelkahar Belhadj, an al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb commander, was shot dead by Algerian police while he was planning a suicide bombing. In January 2015, Belhadj called for an early presidential election after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika suffered from a stroke.